July 13, 2012
DETAILS ON JOHN LENNON'S PROPOSED 1981 TOUR EMERGE
Rock roadie Henry Smith revealed to Rock Cellar magazine that he was drafted by John Lennon and Yoko Ono to help plan their proposed 1981 tour, which Lennon announced to his studio band on October 10th, 1980 -- the day after his 40th birthday. The spring world tour was to feature their new Double Fantasy material and break new ground visually as, arguably, the concert event of the year.
Smith, who over the years has worked for the likes of Led Zeppelin and Aerosmith, among others, came into the Lennon's circle via Double Fantasy's producer Jack Douglas. Smith recalled: "John told me that he was in the process of getting Bill Graham to promote the tour as well as a booking agent. I told him, 'You don't need all that! You're John Lennon!' To prove my point, I called up a booking agent I knew in Texas. . . and told him 'I said if I can give you ten John Lennon dates, would you take them?' The guy just laughed. I told him 'I'm serious.' When he realized I wasn't pulling his leg, he said, 'Of course I would.'"
He went on to say: "John understood what I was telling him. He understood that there was no need to give up a huge chunk of his money that really wasn't going to do anymore for him than my just calling up people I knew and asking if they were interested in John Lennon shows. So John agreed that I would promote the tour for five percent of the gross and save him 40 percent of the money he would have had to pay Graham and a booking agent."
Smith explained that the shows would have a unique visual element to it from city to city: "What we were going to do was take John and Yoko to each city on the tour a day before the show and film them just walking around the streets and famous points of interest and finally walking into the show. We would set up five video screens at five different points on the stage. When the people would walk in for the actual show, they would see John and Yoko on the screens, walking through their city and into the show. We also had the idea of filming the actual audience as they were walking into the show. There would be a time delay of about 20 minutes and the people already in the arena would see themselves walking into the arena. For the time, it would have been pretty trippy."
Upon the release of Lennon's 1980 Double Fantasy album, he was excited to spread his positive message to the baby boomer generation: "When I was singing and writing this and workin' with her, I was visualizing all the people of my age group; I'm singing to them. I'm saying, 'Here I am now, how are you? How's your relationship going -- did you get through it all? Wasn't the '70's a drag (laughter)? Here we are, let's try to make the '80s good, y'know?' It's not out of our control. I still believe in love, I still believe in peace, I still believe in positive thinking. Where there's life, there's hope. Because I always consider my work one piece and I consider that my work won't be finished until I'm dead and buried and hope that's a long, long time."
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